Soldier

The Soldier is a class played in both 6v6 and Highlander. It is the most basic of the classes, and is a good all-around fighter. The Soldier's weapon of choice is the Rocket Launcher, a projectile weapon with good damage spread and range. The Soldier can adapt to most of different situations and is very mobile. He has the second highest base health in the game (200), but is also the second slowest class behind the Heavy. However, the ability of the Soldier to rocket jump makes him more highly mobile as compared to other classes, but it comes at the expense of some health.

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In 6v6, the Soldier will usually fulfill two main roles: "Pocket" Soldier and "Roaming" Soldier. The Pocket Soldier focuses on keeping his Medic alive and using heals to deal damage, take positioning on his enemies, and lead his team. The Roaming Soldier plays a fundamental role in initiating battles for his team by creating distractions and advantages, and supporting his team by controlling the flank.

The most basic role of the Pocket Soldier is keeping the medic alive and using his abundant heals to deal damage, get kills and lead the team. The Pocket along with the Medic and Demoman form the core "combo" of any 6v6 team. He will usually be the target of an ÜberCharge, if not the Demoman. The Pocket is usually the third biggest pick behind the Medic and Demoman, however since he is usually at a fearsome three hundred health, it is not easy to frag him. The standard or "meta" loadout for the Pocket Soldier is the Rocket Launcher/Original, the Shotgun and the Escape Plan. But you can change this up to the gunboats for your team to be more mobile in fights although it is not the best choice for most people and or teams.

The Roaming Soldier's main job is to help one of his Scouts on the flank, and create openings in the other team so that his own team can push. The Roamer is most often the player that will suicide into the other team in hopes of getting a Medic pick or to force the Medic to Übercharge. The Roamer also wants to know the ins and outs of a map so that he knows all of its hiding spots and flanks. He wants to hide so that he can easily get a jump on the enemy team and hopefully get a pick or two. Hiding also provides the advantage of knowing exactly what the enemy team is doing, allowing the Roamer to relay information back to his team and gaining an advantage over the opposition. He is basically the most "disposable" unit of the team. The standard loadout for a Roaming Soldier is the Rocket Launcher/Original, the Gunboats and the Escape Plan.

In higher levels of play, the pocket will usually become the main caller. This means that the pocket will be calling plays such as pushing or falling back. Another thing the pocket should call is when to pop the Übercharge.

In Highlander, there is only one Soldier on each team. This Soldier often functions like a Roaming Soldier would in 6v6. As such, many 6v6 Roamer strategies can be applied to Highlander as well. Often used as a roaming pick class, the Soldier is mostly run with Gunboats and the stock Rocket Launcher, or the Black Box. A well coordinated team can organize pick classes to work together for a common goal, like forcing a Medic to use his ÜberCharge or taking out an Engineer nest. In most maps, the Soldier is used to control the flank. He is used to defend the flank of his own team and in turn harass his opponents. Some teams will run the Soldier closer to the combo, so that he can use his splash damage to protect the combo.

The Rocket Launcher is the default primary weapon for the Soldier, due to its versatility. The combination of high splash and direct damage, four rocket clipsize, knockback and the ability to rocket jump make this the most popular choice for almost every Soldier.

The Original is considered by many as a reskin of the Rocket Launcher. This is objected by others due to the fact that this weapon shoots from the centre of the player model as opposed from the right side, or the left for players using left hand sided view models. It was banned from use in early days of leagues such as ETF2L, which only allowed the weapon after Season 11.

The Direct Hit is a primary that allows for precise shots due to the reduced spread and buffed damage. Granting minicrits for airshots and destroying level 3 buildings in 2 shots, the Direct Hit is a great weapon to counter jumping Soldiers, or to take out the enemy sentry. The projectiles travel 80% faster and do 25% more damage, but have a -70% reduction in explosion radius.

The Black Box has identical stats to the stock Rocket Launcher, except for the fact that you have one less rocket, but can gain up to 20 health for every attack. This makes the Black Box ideal for roaming around the map without a Medic. Pioneered by Vhalin, the black box can be used effectively to increase survivability for Highlander Soldiers.

The Rocket Jumper deals no damage, to yourself or enemies. It is often used as a training weapon for rocket jumping, and thus is rarely seen outside of pubs/jump servers, as it denies the Soldier one of his greatest strengths through the use of large, area-of-effect damage.

The Liberty Launcher is not often seen in competitive. It grants faster moving rockets, an extra rocket in the clip, and 25% less self-damage, at the cost of dealing 25% less damage to enemies. The extra projectile speed and clip size makes it excellent for easily catching fast-moving Scouts, and the reduced self-damage can be combined with Gunboats for extremely low Health costs on rocket jumps. The damage penalty is negligible when accounting for all five rockets, so it is a good choice all around. However, It is not a good weapon against a heavy, as you need to dish out damage quickly.

The Cow Mangler 5000 has infinite ammo, and can slowly charge a powerful shot that minicrits, disables buildings and applies afterburn on hit, but the weapon itself only does 20% damage to buildings, and cannot deal any critical hits. The Cow Mangler is very bad at dealing with Sentries and Mini-Sentries as a result, but its charged shot can allow co-ordinated allies to take down buildings for you. Medics using Kritzkrieg should not use their Ubercharge to help Cow Mangler users, as the crit boost will have no effect on its rockets.

The Beggar's Bazooka is perhaps the most unique rocket launcher out of the 7 choices. Instead of having 4 rockets loaded like most others, it starts with zero loaded, and the player is required to hold down their Primary Attack button to load the rockets. Only 3 rockets can be held at one time, and loading additional rockets will cause the launcher to overload, damaging the Soldier and any players in the immediate area. The Soldier can intentionally overload, and use the damage to jump across large areas, similar to a rocket jump, albeit much more powerful. This attribute was once often used to bomb into the enemy from far away with 3 rockets already loaded. However, the Bazooka was changed to remove a rocket for every overload and later given 20% less blast radius, limiting the power of soldier bombs with this weapon. Bazooka is also very inaccurate at mid-to-long range due to its random projectile deviation.

The Air Strike is a community-created primary weapon. While rocket jumping, its attack speed is increased by 65%. In addition, on each kill using the weapon, its clip size is increased by one, up to 8 rockets after 5 kills. The projectiles fired by this weapon deal 15% less damage (both to enemies and the Soldier when rocket jumping) and have a 10% smaller explosion radius. Its blast radius is further reduced by 20% while rocket jumping.

The Shotgun is the go-to secondary for pocket Soldiers in the 6v6 game style. It is useful in a variety in situations. For instance, the Shotgun provides you with extra firepower should you have no rockets loaded or if you're out of ammo. This extra damage can help protect your Medic should he be harassed while you're out of rockets.

The Reserve Shooter deals mini-crits to airborne enemies up to 5 seconds after you switch to your secondary. The Reserve Shooter has 4 shots in its clip, and also increases weapon switch speed by 15%. The Shotgun is generally considered superior to the Reserve Shooter, as it has a full 6 clip and can deal a great amount of damage on its own.

The Righteous Bison functions as an alternative to the Shotgun that excels as midrange spam. This role is fulfilled by three attributes of the weapon: decreased ramp up (resembling the Rocket Launcher or Sticky Launcher's damage curve), and infinite ammo. The Righteous Bison does not see a lot of use in competitive play because the Soldier's rocket launcher is arguably better at spam than the Bison, and giving up the Gunboats or Shotgun is too much to ask for most Soldiers.

The Gunboats give you a 60% reduction in damage taken from rocket jumps, at the cost of an effectively empty secondary slot. This is a common choice for both the roaming Soldier role in 6v6, and for Soldiers in Highlander. The reduced rocket jump damage further allows Soldier's to perform what is called a bomb. For more information on this item, see Gunboats.

The Mantreads give the Soldier a passive -75% knockback reduction, as well as the ability to deal 3x falling damage to an opposing player that he lands on. This weapon is not seen often in competitive play, as its benefits are too situational.

The Buff Banner grants the user and his teammates nearby Mini-Crits. It is not widely used in competitive sixes, but is sometimes used in Highlander. It can be useful during big pushes, especially on King of the Hill maps.

The Battalions Backup provides a defensive boost to all nearby teammates, with an additional resistance to sentries while activated. It also counters the effect of the Kritzkrieg and grants the Soldier +20 max health. This makes it useful to run during pushes, and as a way to co-ordinate a retreat without getting wiped.

The B.A.S.E. Jumper deploys a parachute upon a second tap of the jump button. It allows the user to glide to the floor at a vertically steady rate. This, in turn, also removes any potential for fall damage.

The Concheror, while its effect is activated, provides a speed boost and returns 35% of damage dealt as health for nearby teammates, as well as giving the Soldier passive health regeneration, starting at 1 heath/second and scaling up as more time passes without taking damage to a maximum of 8 heath/second. This is very useful for large pushes, especially for slower, tanky classes.

The Panic Attack is a community-created primary weapon for the Engineer, and a secondary weapon for the Soldier, Pyro, and Heavy.

The Panic Attack starts with 0 rounds in its magazine. Upon pressing and holding down primary fire, the player will begin loading shells into the magazine port, and will continue to do so as long as primary fire is held down. Upon releasing, the player will fire all shots one-by-one. Up to four shells can be loaded and fired in this fashion. The Panic Attack will automatically fire all the shots in the barrel if the player attempts to load in more than 4 shells. Compared to the stock Shotgun, the weapon loads 50% faster and increases speed switch by 50%. In addition, as the user's health decreases, the weapon's firing rate and spread both increase, firing faster shots at lower accuracy when at low health.

The Shovel is a stock weapon, however in competitive, it's rare to see it used as most other melee's for the soldier are considered straight upgrades as melee is hardly used in competitive Team Fortress 2.

Once the Escape Plan is equipped, it has the unique ability to increase the movement speed of the player as their health is diminished. Consequently, the weapon blocks 90% of healing from all Medic weapons while active, and all damage taken will become mini-crits seconds after being deployed. This weapon is especially useful to flee from fights when you have open ground to run through. The Escape Plan is a common weapon used by 6v6 Soldiers. The increased movement speed paired with the soldier's ability to damage itself allows the Escape Plan to be used as a tool during rollout. Pocket Soldiers in 6v6 will sometimes call this the "Escape Plan Rollout".

The Equalizer increases the damage done as the user's health decreases. It is generally overlooked for the increased mobility provided by the Escape Plan. The difference between the two being: The Equalizer can aid a player in trying to stop damage coming in when low health (kill the enemy) to survive; whilst the Escape Plan helps the player to escape the damage to survive. As it is rare to be in an opportune melee position against another proficient player, escaping damage is more reliable. Coupled with the rollout ability provided by the Escape Plan, the Equalizer is not particularly useful in competitive play.

The Pain Train increases your capture rate by 1 (from 1x to 2x), at the cost of 10% extra bullet vulnerability. In 6v6, the Demoman often equips the Pain Train, however it's still viable for a Soldier to equip it, especially the roamer.

The Half-Zatoichi grants the Soldier 50% max health upon a kill, however, it has the downside of dealing 50 points of self damage when putting it away if no kill was attained. If the user drops below 50 health, the sword cannot be put away until the soldier has more than 50 health or gets a kill.

The Disciplinary Action is a melee weapon used as a rollout tool for Highlander play. When an ally is hit with this weapon, both the soldier with the item equipped and the ally hit receive a static speed boost (meaning a Heavy will have the same net speed increase as a Scout). The only downside is -25% damage, however it is rare to see melees used to deal damage in competitive play, so the Disciplinary Action is regarded as an upgrade in most cases.

The Market Gardener is used as a pick weapon, most often by roaming Soldiers. The weapon delivers a critical hit if the wielder deals damage whilst in the air from an explosive jump. This means it is able to one hit kill the Medic, but is therefore viable for only proficient rocket jumpers to use. It is far less popular than the Escape Plan because an opportunity to "Market Garden" a player without running the risk of taking significant airshot damage against proficient players is very low.